That’s a good point right there. To tell you the truth, I would’ve loved to see someone willing to take a hard foul on Lebron while he was making lay up after dunk after dunk on us last year. Sucks to know that 10-15 years ago, Lebron would’ve been on his ass after eight of those points or so. We need big men that if they give fouls, make sure they aren’t those ticky-tacky fouls that put players like Glen Davis on the line for a try at a three-point play.

In other news, I heard Charlotte wants to petition to the league to have the last minute or so of that game replayed because of the offensive interference call. I’m sorry, but getting to the line 11 more times than your opponent and only hitting 65% of them should be where you focus your resolve. Being able to hit some free throws would’ve won the Bobcats the game last night. I suppose they’d like the chance to shoot those again. Come on, win or lose, be professional. Bad calls happen. In the NBA, they occur so much that it’s caused many people to not even bother watching thr NBA because they’re convinced it’s fixed. I don’t believe the games are rigged, but I’ll admit I have found myself at a complete loss a number of times at some of the calls the refs will make, especially in the playoffs. Bottom line though, if your team is good enough, they’ll play through it and learn to beat the refs.

To me, that’s one of Detroit’s greatest strengths. I hardly ever see the Pistons get a game called their way, and never in the playoffs. Yet, most of the time, they don’t even let that stop them. Beating Miami in a game seven solidified that with me. If you can get past Dwayne Wayde in the final minutes of a tight game with the calls that guy was getting a couple of years ago, you must be doing something right.

“PHILADELPHIA — The Bulls placed Joakim Noah on the inactive list for Friday’s game against the 76ers after the rookie forward engaged in an angry exchange with assistant coach Ron Adams at the team’s morning shootaround.

Two team sources said Noah kept forgetting plays and blowing assignments during the walkthrough, then snapped when Adams kept riding him.”

Apparently, it was the players that decided on the suspension.

They just had a bad game. Jarvis was off. Maxiell’s getting used to double teams. Brezec, Hermann and Afflalo played with energy though.

And, as for Stuckey, that shot of the scarred, swollen hand he was playing with was enough for me to give him a pass on this one.

Anyway, I guess I can be glad for Nazr. I’m more glad that we unloaded his contract and have a little financial flexibility.

imo the bench didn’t do that horribly. jarvis couldn’t hit anything, that is true, nor could stuckey. but they were all open shots. they made mostly good decisions i wonder if tay’s slump or the emergence of herrmann has put some pressure on cookie jarvis.

max should have gotten about four more foul calls. the refs used that time as an excuse to let the ‘cats back in it. it really was making my mad. max would get hacked on our end, no call, then the immediate next play max would get a slightly cleaner block on wallace or okafor and they’d call the foul.

herrmann did very well in this game i thought. if jarvis doesn’t start hitting his shots i wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of him.

it looks like brezec can play, i personally like his defense, he’s quick on his feet and long. i don’t really know his offense, they rarely give him the ball when he’s out there. he certainly wants to be here pretty badly and hustles his ass off when he’s on the court.

to me amir represents the uptempo, run and gun bench that joe d has been trying to create to compliment our unmatched half court game. he’s long, fast and has a knack for splitting defenders and getting to the hoop. he may need about 30 more pounds on him to really meet his potential, but i really have no idea because he never plays.

we’ve had a good bench every year if you ask me, but it would have taken courage from flip to sit a starter and play them (thus risking a *gasp* regular season loss) and it would have taken a little extra work to integrate more slashing, attacking type play. rip said it himself a week or two ago when he said they’d always had bench guys who could score, but they just never got any burn.

and what do you expect from poor nazr? he doesn’t have the quickest hands and our perimeter defense practically invites people to drive to the basket. i’ll never understand people criticizing amir or nazr for committing a lot of fouls when if they hadn’t commited their 6 fouls they would have allowed 6 dunks.

I wish him well and I’ll cheer hard when I see Stretch and/or The Gangster enter the game!

Ugh, I need a new keyboard.

I don’t blame the guy for being dead weight here. His performance was essentially the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy created by the Pistons (and piled on by fans) that he was garbage. We treated him like it; he played like it. He can play solid ball for close to 30 a night (he’s averaging 25 per for Charlotte), and we only gave him around 20-22 when he was starting. Instead of encouraging him in his struggles, we derided him, found a replacement as quickly as we could, and then turned him into an after thought. I know that we’re a great organization, but we’re not infallible. Other Matt, I think you should look to us for blame on this one before you look to Nazr. He’s not a robot, most people would’ve been discouraged in his position with their play suffering as a result.